Academic Blogs: a new wiki designed to create an invisible college of academic blogs. It started as an idea for an aggregation of ‘theory blogs’, I think, but the project has developed. Ange is already writing a post about this for Long Sunday, but I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon. Here’s a slab of text from the FAQ:

What are the necessary qualifications for a blog to be listed?

They’re pretty simple - the blog has to be written by an academic. That is to say, the author should be either a member of a third level institution’s faculty (i.e. community college, college, university, technical institute or whatever), or pursuing a doctoral degree, or employed by a third level institution to do academically relevant work (such as working as a university librarian). If you come across a blog that seems to meet these requirements, feel free to add it. When you do, you ought to note the evidence for why the blog qualifies on the changes page. Some blogs - e.g. those written by anonymous academics - may involve tricky judgment calls. Say why you think this is a genuine academic blog, but please add it - many academics have good reason to blog anonymously. If it turns out not to be a legitimate academic blog, it will likely be deleted later. Very rarely, blogs written by non-academics may qualify. If you think a blog by a non-academic qualifies on its merits, you should suggest it to one of the Senior Editors, with supporting evidence. The Senior Editor will then decide whether to nominate it. Otherwise it is liable to be deleted summarily. If you are a non-academic and you nominate your own blog for consideration, don’t be offended if it isn’t accepted - only very exceptional blogs will be included. The intent of this site isn’t to provide comprehensive lists of blogs and resources dealing with history, politics, archaeology etc - there are already very good sites in existence that do this. It’s to provide a resource for academic bloggers, and readers of academic blogs.

Grant Morrison’s thoughts on Invisible Colleges differed somewhat from this plan, but no matter. It’s ever so comforting to watch idiots carve up the de-institutionalised, random, multiple spaces of the bloggosphere into manageable, institutionalised blocks. Say ‘yeah!’ if you’re an academic. If you’re not, piss off. We don’t like your type here. The only exceptions are very special idiot savants who can do things like recite the entirety of Plato’s Republic in Latin and even then, we have to delouse them first.

(Note that Academic Blogs is a wiki, editable by almost anyone, so if one was inclined to register one’s objections, one might do so quite easily on the site itself.)